Keeping one step ahead

There's a lot to be said for plug-and-play appliances that solve IT problems and improve network performance, says Dudley Moor-Radford.

All networks are mission-critical, and it is not just large corporates that suffer and lose money, business and goodwill as a result of downtime.

Remove access to applications, documents and data, or prevent people printing, emailing or browsing, and you won't have to wait long for the screams.

And as networks become more complex and crowded, a network's ability to perform affects the efficient running of a business. A slow network or one that constantly crashes is almost as bad as one that doesn't work at all.

So if a good network means happy customers and productive, contented staff, why is there not more effort to keep it that way?

Network monitoring solutions have traditionally been the privilege of large corporates, so the time and cost of installing and running a Tivoli or Hewlett-Packard OpenView system makes it impossible for many companies to justify.

The return on investment simply isn't there, and these solutions also need a team of network professionals.

At the other end of the network management market it is possible to find low-cost Windows-based software products, but often they lack functionality, are badly supported and difficult to scale.

What is needed is an affordable yet effective solution that keeps network managers one step ahead by providing information on the physical state of network devices or nodes, such as servers and their applications, routers, printers and workstations.

This is where the network management appliance comes in. There is a lot to be said for plug-and-play appliances that solve IT problems and improve performance.

They are easy to install without having to buy or find a spare server, and if they go wrong there is only one place that the buck can stop. These benefits are just as important to resellers as end-users.

And with a browser-based interface, appliances can open opportunities to provide managed services.

Researcher IDC estimates that worldwide revenue from appliance servers will grow to £31bn by 2005.

By combining a new breed of compact server with problem-solving software it is possible to create out-of-the-box bundles that deliver added value for end-users and added margin for resellers.

Dudley Moor-Radford is commercial director at network management firm Mutiny.